All That Remains
by Fierceawakening
Summary: Post-Partners. I was trying to write a fic that fixes the rift between Megatron and Starscream and... this thing... came out of my mind instead. Quite possibly the bleakest I've ever written them. M for dub-con spark-sex and character death.


A piercing shriek filled the air as Megatron slammed the metal in his hand hard against the wall in front of him. _Metal_, he thought. _Just metal. Just scrap._

The cry came again, so high-pitched that feedback howled in his audio receptors. He fought down a roar. "You have something to say, Starscream?"

The tangle of plating under his hand stirred to life. Wings twitched. Claws skittered. And red optics widened, irising open farther than Megatron had ever seen them. "Leave me - let me go. I swear I will never - I will never work against you or any Decepticon."

Megatron shook the handful of metal he held. Once-graceful wings scraped against the wall as they struggled desperately to flatten out and avoid another impact. "Let you go?" He raised his free arm, the cannon mounted on top of it flaring with lavender energy. "Oh, no. _Never_, Starscream."

Thin claws scrabbled over Megatron's broad arm, scraping the plating there and then biting deep. Megatron felt the warmth of his own energon as it welled up in the cuts, dripping over Starscream's fingertips as his forearm blazed with pain.

That was familiar, the bite of those brutal clawtips almost comforting, even now. They had perfected this dance over long, long years. This felt like that: a dangerous, energizing caress. Megatron felt his systems respond, his spark whirling fast in his chest, his cooling fans roaring to life. The air around his cannon crackled as it, too, pulsed with heat.

"I am not yours," the Seeker he held rasped, intakes rattling as they expelled air.

Megatron slammed Starscream harder into the wall and let go, his claws tracing over Starscream's chest. Stunned, the Seeker made no move to push him away.

"This says you are," Megatron answered, running his claws over the Decepticon brand in the center of Starscream's chest. "This mark is mine."

Crimson optics flickered, struggling to refocus. "The war - the war is over, Megatron. There is nothing for you here." His vocalizer crackled, spitting bursts of static. "Noth - nothing - for me."

Megatron chuckled. His hand moved to the edge of a twisted wing, his fingertips sliding over the dents as the frame beneath them shuddered. "Nothing for you?"

Starscream looked up, startled by the sudden gentleness. "Maste - Megatron. Please. Let me -"

Megatron ignored him, wrapping his claw around the wing and squeezing. "That's always what mattered to you, isn't it, Starscream? What's in it for you?"

"Yes - no - no - _aaaaih!_" The Seeker wailed again as his wing came loose from its mount on his back, showering his frame and Megatron's hand with bright blue energon. "Megatron - master -"

"That's better," Megatron murmured, moving his hand down to the edge of Starscream's chest plate and sliding his claws into the gap beneath it, pointing them up toward the chamber holding Starscream's spark.

"Did you come all this way just to kill me, Lord Megatron?" the Seeker spat. Then his faceplates twisted into a smirk. "You've spared me so many times before."

Megatron bared his fangs. "Oh, I don't plan on killing you, Starscream. Not if you give me what I want."

"And what is it you want?" Starscream hissed, not daring to twitch for fear it might drive those fingers deeper. "For me to bare my spark to you like nothing has changed?"

"For a start," Megatron answered, snickering.

Starscream snarled his frustration. "I don't suppose you'll leave me alone after that?"

"No. But I might leave you functional."

"And what then?"

"You are in no position to bargain with me, Seeker," Megatron rumbled, driving his fingers in deeper. "Do as I say and I might just carry you back to the Nemesis with me instead of vaporizing you." His optics flared. "That is all the choice you have, Starscream. Now make it and stop wasting my time."

"Fine," the other mech spat as his chest plates shifted aside. The spark beneath crackled, lightning flickering over the surface of the bright red orb.

Megatron grinned, its light bathing his faceplates. They glowed, the red of molten metal, as he regarded his prize. He slid his hand down, out of the way, but kept his claws pointed inward, poised to spear Starscream if he tried anything.

"Get on with it, you rusting, tyrannical fool," Starscream hissed.

Megatron chuckled, sliding his own chest plates apart. His spark pulsed greedily, tendrils of energy arcing out from it and burying themselves in the seething sphere in front of them. Starscream winced as they sank into his spark.

But the connection had already been forged. Megatron could sense Starscream's emotions through it, the wave of fear and anger hitting him so hard he staggered back as if from a physical blow.

And yet, beneath it, somewhere in the storm of emotions he had linked himself to, he could sense the ghosts of older feelings: admiration, and envy, and the beginnings of desire.

Answering it, he roared, gathering up the energy roiling through his own spark and hurling it full force into the other.

Starscream's frame twitched as the bolt of energy connected, pouring into his core and flooding every part of him. His defenses fell, one by one, flimsy metal pushed aside by the torrent of energy and melting to nothing in its heat.

The Seeker gasped in desperation and defeat as his systems responded, a wave of desire coursing through his spark in spite of him.

Megatron felt it, throwing back his head and roaring in triumph as another bolt of energy tore free from him to spear his prey.

_You belong to me, _he thought, too far gone to form the words. It no longer mattered anyway; Starscream would feel them as though they were his own thoughts, reverberating through his processor and speeding through his circuitry, inexorable and irresistible.

Starscream's free hand moved to Megatron's back, sliding over a massive shoulder and pulling, pressing Megatron closer. The tyrant bellowed, laughing, as their sparks pressed close enough to touch. They blazed with energy, so intense it was painful, heating both mechs' spark casings near to melting.

Gritting his dental plates, Megatron drew their combined energy in, his spark simmering with it, overfull and pulsing. Then he let it go again, racing through both of them until their circuits burned with agony and need.

A moment later it burst through both of them, a bright nova of heat and light that stalled their systems and blanked their processors entirely.

###

Megatron recovered first, cycling heavy pants as his systems reset. He was still holding Starscream up by one claw, its tips still poised just beyond the entrance to Starscream's spark chamber.

"Even with you here helpless in front of me, I still can't seem to finish you," he murmured.

Starscream's optics flickered as they came back online. He looked up at Megatron, his mouthplates shifting in a slow, lazy smile. Then, as awareness returned, his optics widened. He stared up at Megatron and then down at his opened chest, his gaze finally coming to rest on the fingers still pointed at his spark.

"You're coming with me," Megatron said.

"You're letting me live, then," Starscream purred, half seductive, half incredulous.

"I'm dragging your worthless frame back to the Nemesis, if that's what you mean, yes. Because you are mine. You made a vow to me, Starscream, all those years ago."

"A vow," Starscream answered, snarling the word. "A promise to serve, in exchange for knowledge. And for power." He chuckled. "What power is there now, among the ragtag band of fools that remains of the Decepticons? Our home is a cinder. Our cause is a joke."

Megatron curled his hand in warning. "Then perhaps it is time that we begin again, Starscream," he answered, his fangs gleaming as he smiled. "That you return to the place you were in when this all began - and the rank you held. That you earn your place at my side through true demonstrations of devotion." He smirked. "If that is possible for you."

"You would have me return in disgrace," Starscream spat. "Me! Your former second-in-command! You would have me skulk around the ship singing the praises of my master, claiming to be a poor student who knows nothing, who waits only for the next opportunity to serve and study the actions of someone who landed us on a faraway planet with no home and no -"

"I would have you live, fool!" Megatron roared. "And as long as you live, _you belong to me._"

Starscream's head snapped up. "I belong to no one but myself."

Megatron chuckled. How many times had he heard the Seeker say those words, only to wing back on the next fair wind, begging to be restored to his place again?

Starscream rose, shakily supporting himself as he struggled to his feet. Then he slammed himself back down again, driving his spark itself down onto Megatron's clawed fingers.

Megatron bellowed, agony racing through his fingertips as the heat of Starscream's spark seared them. And with that pain came another, worse - the ghost of the connection between them, their sparks still not fully separate after their recent union.

Staggering back, the tyrant fell to his knees, still holding Starscream's much lighter frame aloft by the hand that pierced it. So this was how it felt to die.

"No," he gasped, his own cry still echoing in his audio receptors.

The frame impaled by his hand twitched as the energy powering it faded away. Red lightning crackled over Megatron's fingertips once, and then there was nothing more.

Megatron had killed before, more times than he could count. Millions more of his enemies had died in the war. He was not one to flinch at death. Still, the sight of Starscream's lifeless frame hanging on his hand repulsed him.

Optics wide with horror and disgust, he tossed the lifeless hunk of metal that had been his second-in-command away from him. He stared at it a long moment, half expecting it to stir to sudden life again, hissing recriminations or seductions, snarling curses or begging to be spared.

His spark pulsed, its heat an aching mockery of the energy that had only just now raced through his systems in something he had assumed must have been triumph.

His other arm lifted, the cannon atop it still thrumming with heat. Forcing himself to look directly at the heap of scrap in front of him. Wordlessly, he fired, enveloping it in a burst of lavender light. Then another, and another, until he saw the metal in the center of that purple flame glow bright and melt away, utterly consumed.

His chest plates slammed shut with a deep clang. Beneath them, he felt his spark pulse once, heavy with a feeling he barely remembered. He pushed it aside, burying it in the deepest parts of his spark. He had long ago decided he could not allow himself the luxury of regret.

Turning away, he rocketed into the sky. He transformed as he went, speeding alone back to his flagship and the remnants of his war.


End file.
